158 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF BAKWAINS. Chap. YIII. 



have confessed long afterwards that they then first hegan to pray- 

 in secret. Of the effects of a long-continued course of instruction 

 there can be no reasonable doubt, as mere nominal belief has 

 never been considered sufficient proof of conversion by any body 

 of missionaries ; and, after the change which has been brought 

 about by this agency, we have good reason to hope well for the 

 future : those I have myself witnessed behaving in the manner 

 described, when kindly treated in sickness often utter imploring 

 words to Jesus, and I believe sometimes really do pray to him 

 in their afflictions. As that great Redeemer of the guilty seeks 

 to save all he can, we may hope that they find mercy through 

 His blood, though little able to appreciate the sacrifice He made. 

 The indirect and scarcely appreciable blessings of Christian mis- 

 sionaries going about doing good are thus probably not so despi- 

 cable as some might imagine ; there is no necessity for beginning 

 to tell even the most degraded of these people of the existence of 

 a God, or of a future state, the facts being universally admitted. 

 Everything that cannot be accounted for by common causes is 

 ascribed to the Deity, as creation, sudden death, &c. " How 

 curiously God made these things !" is a common expression ; as 

 is also, " He was not killed by disease, he was killed by God." 

 And, when speaking of the departed — though there is nought in 

 the physical appearance of the dead to justify the expression — 

 they say, " He has gone to the gods," the phrase being identical 

 with " abiit ad plures." 



On questioning intelligent men among the Bakwains as to 

 then former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and the future 

 state, they have scouted the idea of any of them ever having 

 been without a tolerably clear conception on all these subjects. 

 Respecting their sense of right and wrong, they profess that 

 nothing we indicate as sin ever appeared to them as otherwise, 

 except the statement that it was wrong to have more wives than 

 one ; and they declare that they spoke in the same way of the 

 direct influence exercised by God in giving rain in answer to 

 prayers of the rain-makers, and in granting deliverance in times 

 of danger, as they do now, before they ever heard of white men. 

 The want, however, of any form of public worship, or of idols, or 

 of formal prayers or sacrifice, make both Caffres and Bechuanas 

 appear as among the most godless races of mortals known any- 



